53% More Book Banning Incidents In US Schools This Year 360
vikingpower writes "Isabel Allende's The House of The Spirits. Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Alice Walker's The Color Purple. Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man. What do these titles have in common? They are banned at a school in the U.S. Yes, in 2013. A project named The Kids' Right to Read Project (by the National Coalition Against Censorship ) investigated three times the average number of incidents, adding to an overall rise in cases for the entire year, according to KRRP coordinator Acacia O'Connor. To date, KRRP has confronted 49 incidents in 29 states this year, a 53% increase in activity from 2012. During the second half of 2013, the project battled 31 new incidents, compared to only 14 in the same period last year. 'It has been a sprint since the beginning of the school year,' O'Connor said. 'We would settle one issue and wake up the next morning to find out another book was on the chopping block. The NCAC also offers a Book Censorship Toolkit on its website."
Re:The 21st Century is (Score:5, Interesting)
Ellison's Invisible Man is banned? Dammit, I was forced to read that (very slow-paced book about racism) in high school. Hours of my life I'll never get back! Why couldn't you have banned it earlier? Whyyyy?
Actually, that one baffles me: unlike, say, Huck Finn, Invisible Man is primarily about racism: of course it depicts racism and racial stereotypes; illustrating just how messed up we were was the point of the story (the man was "invisible" in the sense that no one ever noticed he was a person, deserving basic consideration).
Yawn (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't like that? Then homeschool your kids and be responsible for their welfare yourself.
For what it's worth, I homeschool my own kids. I won't show slasher movies to a 3 year old. I expect an 18 year old to be prepared to be an adult. At some point in there a transformation has taken place; every child is different, but parents can and do mess it up by exposing their kids to junk when they're not ready for it. Such junk could be bad friends (learning to be racists/dishonest/etc.) or (yes, Slashdot) bad media for their age and emotional maturity.
Re:The 21st Century is (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd give you odds it's the reverse - that someone searched through an eBook library and banned every one with racial epithets regardless of context.
Re:OTT headline? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ban or Censor? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The 21st Century is (Score:4, Interesting)
You misunderstand like most other people here. It's not about covering up history. It's 100% about the delivery and the attitudes of those that would impart the information to our youth.
First, teach about how we made useless, baseless, and extremely harmful distinctions between people based on their skin color, religion, gender, etc. You don't need to single out white people to do it at all. We can reference a huge amount of history and disparate races and cultures. The Greeks, Romans, Celts, large parts of Africa, the Dutch slave trade, indentured servitude laws, religious persecution in Europe, the Inquisition, the Mongols, and yes, slavery in the US. Teach that slavery and racism are not the exclusive domain of white men, but very old practices that we no longer tolerate in evolved societies.
Secondly, emphasize that this is not how we do it today. It's 100% not acceptable behavior at all. All forms of racism, including gender related behavior. That they may notice some older people still doing it, but that they are not as mature, and yes, have fallen victim to old bad habits. Make it abundantly clear that the children in the room don't bear any of the responsibility and blame for what happened in the past, and they're our future. The best way to stamp out racism is to refuse to participate. Literally, stop thinking about it and it will stop.
Thirdly, be proactive in NOT making racial distinctions as much as possible. When you do reference it, be sure to reference it as something from the past. Anytime you speak about a contemporary person, don't mention race. Children don't need to know Obama is black and the first black President. Why? There should be no value whatsoever in the information, and to find value, means to find value in those racially supported distinctions. All they need to know is that he was/is President, and was a complete and utter fucking disappointment, which had nothing to do with his skin color. That's left up to history to judge though. I have my own opinions about that total pussy.
Fourthly, and this isn't hard, fill text books with examples of great people from all over the world and different cultures. When you show children that our greatest and most revered people came from so many different backgrounds, and look so different, it subtly reinforces the idea that skin color really doesn't matter. You and I know that it doesn't. We need to show them that great people come from all walks of life equally.
Fifth.... DON'T BRING THE DIRTY LAUNDRY AND NEGATIVE FILTH FROM YOUR OWN PAST AND LIFE EXPERIENCES INTO THE CLASSROOM TO INFECT AND TAINT THE YOUTH OF TOMORROW.
I'm sorry. I just can't fucking stand it. When I hear about some liberal piece of shit trash woman (yes, she is black) shit talking and going on and on about the "white man" in a classroom in 2013 with children in there it drives me insane. How dare she harm those young children and inflict her own bullshit on them.
I learned about the word nigger when I was almost a teenager, and it was the most confusing day of my life. I actually told the boy that it was okay. I was a nigger too, as I thought it meant something like nerd. I grew up not understanding anything about skin color, or racism. The more people wanted to teach me, the more I found them having resentment towards white men in the present and then, as ridiculous as it sounds, conflating it and associating it with me.
Then I learned about the complete logical fallacy that was Affirmative Action. Why I was being punished because of my skin color? Why does Greg get all of these things, not because of his accomplishments, but because of his skin color?
No. I refuse to participate in the rest of many people's delusions. I will teach kids about the logical fallacy that is racism and I will do it in such a way that I don't associate them with events of the past.
Racism does not cure racism.
Re:The 21st Century is (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sorry. I don't actually believe there is a thing called "cultural Marxism".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism [wikipedia.org]
Actually, it dates back to at least 1933, although I'm going to guess that given the context, the GP is probably referring to Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt School and its influence in Britain during the 1960's during "The Cultural Revlution", which drove a lot of the adoption of the P.C. mindset in institutions of higher learning.
BTW: the adoption of the term and its application by conservatives pretty much owes itself to the William S. Lind book "Who stole our culture?", and is rarely used by conservative thinkers outside his clique.